OUTLAW CHEMICAL WARFARE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 4, 28 September 1937, Page 3

OUTLAW CHEMICAL WARFARE

Onr Owd CorreBponde.it.)

President Roosevelt Seeks Abolition "ITS USE IS JNHUMAN"

(From

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30. President Roosevelt expressed his determination to press forward in an attempt to outlaw the use of chemicals in warfare. Sending a veto raessago to Congr'ess, lie quashed a Bill changing the iiame of the Ghemical WarJare Service to the -Chemical Corps, expressing opposition to any inove which would "aggrandise" the chemical warfare jyork of the Ameriean services. "I hope the time will come," he wrote, "when the Chemical Warfare Service can be entirely abolished. To -dignify this service by calling it the Chemical Corps is, in my judgment, contrary to a sound public poiiey." The President' s unexpected veto messagje is in line with his previous efforts to limit extreme modern weapons of aggression. He has privately expressed the view that such weapons might he cut down very drastically, and in 1933 proposed to the heads of all nations an agreement against seiiding troops beyond national boundary hnes. "It has been and is the policy of the Government," wrote President Roosevelt, "to do everything in its power to outlaw use of chemicals in warfare. Sueh use is inhuman and contrary to what inodorn civilisation should etand for. "I- am doing everything in my power to disoourage the use of gases and other chemicals in any war between nations. While, unfortunately, the defensive necessities >of the United States call for study of the use of chemicals in warfare, I do not want the Government of the United States todo anything to aggrandise or make permanent any • special bureau of the Army or Navy engaged in these studies." The President concluded his message with the eentences quoted previously. * There was no indication that Hr Roosevelt oontemplates any special injternational action against chemical warfare at the present time, 'but simply that. every opportunity in discus■ions of the arinameht problem with other nations he indicates that the TTnited States favonrs complete abolition of the weapon.